People often ask us about the cost of travelling the world, especially as a family of four. Since we’re thinking 8-10 months of travel time, that must be really expensive right? I mean, it costs thousands just to take a trip to Disneyland for a week, so how can we afford to be away for months?
Well, it’s actually not as bad as you think. Obviously, if we’re going to be going to expensive parts of the world and going to expensive theme parks (U.S. and Disney, in this example), there’d be no way we could do it. But, most of the world isn’t like that — though sometimes travel agencies will make you think otherwise. Remember, we’ll be travelling to countries where the average monthly wage is $100-200, so why shouldn’t we be able to do it for something similar?
How much does it typically cost to live in our home for a month? Let’s say it’s about $4000 for accommodations, food, entertainment, utilities, transportation (gas, etc.) and so forth. Other families seem to have travelled for far less than that:
- The Dennings of Discover. Share. Inspire. are driving a veggie-powered truck on the same route with 5 kids and just totalled their first month’s expenses on the road at less than $1,800.
- The Vogel Family (with two growing boys) of Family on Bikes cycled from Alaska to Argentina and spent less than $75,000 dollars in 3 years ($2083 a month).
- The Millers from the Edventure Project bicycled around Europe for a year with 4 kids for under $100 a day as well.
- The six person Page family at Livin on the Road travel in an RV all over Australia for less than $100 a day ($3000 a month).
- The Burns family of Our Travel Lifestyle recently moved to Penang, Malaysia and rented an amazing 4 bedroom home for only $350 dollars a month (which is a major cost for travelling).
What do they have in common? Going slow, being prepared and knowing when to make sacrifices.
We’re estimating that our travel will be about $60,000 ($6,000 a month) since we’ll be doing more flying than the above families. Though, to be frank, we haven’t done the nuts and bolts of the costs yet since it’s still some time away… Hopefully the Canadian dollar is doing a little better by then, though, otherwise our costs are going up!
Now, for a nice (albeit quickly edited) around-the-world video posted a few weeks ago: